Don DeLillo Quotes

Once in a while, when I'm alone, I think about my age. I think, How many more years do I have on this earth? But I can't really conceive of dying. Somehow, in my head, I don't think I'll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it'll never come to me. It's crazy, but there it is.

I've spent a lot of words on my own mortality.

Facing your own mortality forces you to re-evaluate your priorities.

It's a weird feeling when you know you're going to die.

In this society, we don't like to face the future and the dying process and all of it. Most of us really don't want to think about it, but it's facing me in the mirror every day.

I'm 61 years old. I'm not that fearful of the future, period. I'm not going to see that much of it.

Naturally, there's got to be a limit for I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

If death is in the room, it's pretty interesting. But I would also say that I'm interested in getting myself to believe that it's going to happen to me. I'm interested in it, because if you're not, you're nuts. It's really de facto what we're here to find out about.

'Aging' has been bad ever since we figured out it led to dying.

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time.

In your teens and twenties, death doesn't exist. In your thirties, you glance down the road occasionally. But then in your forties, it becomes a full-time job looking the other way.

Why should I be worried about dying? It's not going to happen in my lifetime!

You realize mortality is everywhere.

We're all terminal; none of us are getting out of this alive.

What I try to get physically healthy people to understand is that they're going to die someday. There is no way out. And dying isn't failure, but not living is, so make use of your time. Don't keeping waiting.

Mortality applies to every aspect of life. The fear of death is the driving fear of life.

Since I was a child, death is definitely something that I think about every day. But I think that everybody does. You try and avoid it, but it's such a big thing that you can't.

We keep making the same mistakes as a species, and you can usually draw it back to the fact that we are all terrified of dying. We also all think that we are going to escape it until we get to 65!

You feel a sense of urgency, especially at my advanced age, when you're staring into the grave.

I don't have a fear of aging or a fear of death.

I think most of us who live into our 50s have had a few experiences with death. You know, we see people we know start to die. We realize it's getting closer and closer for us.

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

We're so terrified of death in Western culture that we have to make up a myth of an afterlife. I think there's something to be said for living your life very mindful of the fact that you're going to die because I think you carry yourself differently. It doesn't have to be this big, negative bummer.

When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal.

It's only Western civilization that, God forbid, you talk about dying, when it's the only thing we know for certain, right? Everyone's going to die, so what's the big problem? 'Oh, God. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it.' I mean, I'm one of them. I'm not a big fan of talking about dying.